‘This is having a knock-on effect in the wider operation,’ the Swede continues. ‘Last week, we missed a few major deadlines of our own as a direct result of the performance within your unit, so you can see why this cannot be allowed to continue.’
‘And have you talked to Cathy about her performance targets?’ I shout with more venom than perhaps necessary.
‘Cathy has had to pick up the slack, and while she hasn’t been so indelicate as to say it out loud, I doubt she is best pleased.’
He looks at me expectantly, awaiting some sort of explanation. What am I meant to say here? That keeping tabs on adozen people in Toronto and readying myself for any new information on a man I’ve never properly met is taking up more of my waking-hour bandwidth than it reasonably should?
When no explanation is forthcoming, the Swede huffs softly.
‘I acknowledge you’ve had a challenging time in the past year, and perhaps we need to start looking into an alternative working arrangement, or at least some kind of more… restful scenario for you,’ the Swede suggests.
My eyes clearly light up at the prospect of taking extended paid leave, and he sees that.
‘As you are on a casual contract, we could perhaps think about going part-time, or taking unpaid leave,’ he suggests. ‘Or perhaps we could investigate the possibility of a job-share. We could leave your position open, for a certain and reasonable amount of time, if that is something you are open to considering.’
I want to tell him that I want to get myself to a position in life where I don’t need his bag-of-shit job, even if I shared it with a dozen others, but I don’t. Besides, we need the money. Johnny never tires of telling me his plans for us to retire at sixty with a million-pound pension– what exactly he will do then, God himself only knows– and much of that plan is contingent on me not telling this lad here to go and shite.
The Swede takes my weary silence as either tacit agreement or an unspoken acknowledgement of my challenging year, and he makes to leave. As he goes, he gives me a barely there pat on the shoulder.
‘Let’s keep the internet searching for celebrities to out of office hours,’ he says.
On the walk back to fluorescent-lit purgatory, the broad contours of what a life with Ted might look like are starting to form. We’d spend summers in upstate Ontario, taking a cottage by the lake with friends. We would fly to Banff in winter, getting frisky in hot tubs as the snow falls all around us. Canada’s celebrity power couple. The pair that everyone wants to be around.
8
Francesca is back at work from maternity leave, so I need to relive What Happened In June all over again and absorb yet more sympathy that I’m in no mood to receive. Except it doesn’t quite fold out that way.
‘I mean, babies arehard work,’ she says. She has a framed picture of Her Three and a conspicuously yellow breast pump sitting out on the desk. ‘And you know what? It’s a boring life. It’s atoughlife. The days are long and the years are short. It’s the least sexy thing that’s ever happened to our marriage so… well, you’ve got that going for you at least.’
As Francesca pumps, prepares to pump or talks about preparing to pump, things feel especially soul-shredding this morning.
Later on, at lunchtime, I get an unexpected treat in the form of a new magazine interview inPagerto promote Ted’s latest movie,Shock & Awe. My heart swells at the accompanying image of him in a suit, skinny tie and trainers as he gives the camera the big And What. But part of the article makes anxiety rise from the pit of my stomach.
Pager Magazine, 11 December 2010
Thanks toShock & Awe, Levy’s career now finds itself in a particularly sweet spot. Thanks to his keen nosefor a troubled-guy role, the man with the boyish charm is turning heads. As his profile climbs steadily, Levy is also fast becoming catnip for Toronto’s coterie of movie groupies– a development that seems to appal and thrill him in equal measure.
‘Talking to women has always been a little bit terrifying, so this is an interesting turn of events for someone like me, to put it mildly,’ Levy notes over oat lattes in Kensington Market. ‘I’ve never been what you might call an Olympic-level romantic.’
Canada’s latest unlikely sex symbol notes that while he is currently single, he is not necessarily on the lookout for a potential plus-one. ‘Work is all-encompassing right now,’ he claims, before admitting to a fondness for ‘blonde shiksa goddesses’.
I am uncomfortable with any talk of Ted Levy and sex symbol, although I admit to feeling gladdened that he is, at least, categorically single and not necessarily looking for anyone. Google tells me that shiksa describes a ‘a non-Jewish girl or woman’.
A phone notification tells me that Brigitte has posted some new photos to social media.
‘Legs or hot dogs?’ she asks her Twitter friends as the tops of her tanned, oiled knees appear to have accompanied her to a poolside that is decidedly sunnier and more tropical than East London. Something about the entire picture uncorks a weird jealousy in me. Brigitte is out there, living her best life on envy-inducing holidays. Everyone on Facebook seems to be. I am sleepwalking. Still. Suspended in an aspic of my own making.
9
Johnny and I are pretty good at creating the illusion of a nicely united front, I notice. In the waiting room of the relationship counsellor’s office-slash-house, people are looking over at us with intrigue, and at what they assume to be a reassuring hand on my knee. There are a few of us coming and going; people who decided that the first week of January was the best point in time to address whatever big relationship problems they had. The couple ahead of us storm out, deep in their own nuclear winter.
The counsellor who comes to meet us looks young, worryingly so for someone who works out of a Maida Vale redbrick. I want to feel the metaphorical bosom of a sage old veteran, not the eager handshake of the freshly qualified, working up her hours. ‘How are ya?’ I say a little too loudly, as if we are acquaintances meeting for a companionable weeknight drink. She nods in response, and mutely leads us into a room, the only feature of which I can register at first is the box of tissues on a side table. Later, I realize that we are speaking in what must normally be someone’s sitting room, where large white cloths are draped over the TV and bookshelves.
Although she is not in fact wearing one, the therapist, Venetia, is a waterfall cardigan in human form. She may betwenty-eight, thirty tops, but she is all pashmina, orthopaedic loafers and meaningful, sympathetic nodding that makes me want to claw my own throat out. Exactly the sort of daughter my mother wishes she had. The very gentleness of her, and the prospect of us being metaphorically held by her for fifty minutes, makes Johnny inhale sharply through his nose, which is, as best as I can tell, a precursor to crying. I feel him letting go of something internal and long-held. He grabs at one, two of the tissues while I try not to make any strange, sudden moves. He has never been like this and I don’t want to alert him to my presence, in case it makes whatever this is start and go away.
‘So. Things have been challenging for you two,’ Venetia offers.
‘Where to even begin,’ Johnny says, eyeing the tissues. ‘OK. So we’ve been married about five years, and started trying for a child about three years ago. It wasn’t easy, but we eventually got there and, you know, there was major excitement about all of that. We were– are– both really looking forward to becoming parents. But then Esther lost the baby when she was about four months’ pregnant.’
